ABOUT the least conspicuous yet most important thing on any ship, especially a Navy ship, is what those on board often call the wireless shack. It’s a small room aft of the bridge, usually, and the most interesting spot on board the vessel.

WHEN a young American voluntarily enters the Naval Service of his country, by that act he lays aside for a while, and at all times when actually on duty, many of the rights and privileges which before as an independent citizen he was free to exercise.

ON HIS birthday, Rear Admiral Frank E. Beatty was given a crosscut saw by officers, bluejackets and civilian scientists of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Washington, D. C.

“What’s this for?” he asked. “A professional joke,” said a spokesman. “We figured that you’d need something to help cut up those knotty problems we’re going to run into at White Oak.” White Oak—938 acres of rolling Maryland countryside 12 miles north of Washington, D. C.—is one of the Navy Bureau of Ordnance’s newest research centers.